Excel and I will see eye to eye.) This type of chart is called Clustered Column. I click OK to put the chart in the worksheet.FIGURE 3-4: The Insert Chart dialog box.4 Modify the chart.Figure 3-5 shows the resulting chart as well as the Chart Design tab and the Format tab. These tabs combine to form Chart Tools. As you can see, I have to do some modifying. Why? Excel has guessed wrong about how I want to design the chart. It looks okay, but it will look better (to my eye) if I relocate the legend (the part below the x-axis that shows what all the colors mean). As Figure 3-1 shows, I prefer the legend on the right side of the chart.To make the modification, I double-click on the legend. This action opens the Format Legend pane. (See Figure 3-5.) I click the Top Right radio button to reposition the legend.
FIGURE 3-5: The Format Legend pane.
Some work remains. For some reason, Excel creates the chart without a line for the y-axis, and with a light gray line for the x-axis. Also, the axes aren’t labeled yet, and the graph has no title.
I start by formatting the axes. When I click on the y-axis, the Format Axis pane replaces the Format Legend pane. Figure 3-6 shows this pane after choosing Axis Options and then Line. I worked with the Color button to change the color of the y-axis. In the same way, I can select the x-axis and then repeat the same steps to change the color of the x-axis.
FIGURE 3-6: The Format Axis pane, with Axis Options and Line selected.
Next, I add the axis titles and the chart title. To do this, I move the cursor inside the chart and click. A set of buttons appears to the right of the chart. One of them, labeled with a plus sign (+), is called the Chart Elements button. Click this button and, on the pop-up menu that appears, select the check box next to Axis Titles. Figure 3-7 shows the Chart Elements button and the Axis Titles check box selected. Choosing an axis from the pop-up menu adds a text box with placeholder text to that axis.
FIGURE 3-7: The Chart Elements button, with Axis Titles selected.
Use the title text boxes to add the titles and finish off the chart to make it look like the chart in Figure 3-1.
For a quick way to add the chart title, just click the title in the chart and type a new title.
You can preview a chart in a couple of ways. In the Insert Chart dialog box, clicking each recommended chart previews how your data looks in each type of chart. Each preview appears in the dialog box. After you create your chart, mousing over alternatives on the Chart Design tab previews different looks for your chart. Each preview temporarily changes your chart.
Stacking the Columns
If I had selected Excel’s seventh recommended chart, I would have created a set of columns that presents the same information in a slightly different way. This type of chart is called Stacked Columns. Each column represents the total of all the data series at a point on the x-axis. Each column is divided into segments and each segment’s size is proportional to how much it contributes to the total. Figure 3-8 shows this.
FIGURE 3-8: A stacked column chart of the data in Table 3-1.
I inserted each graph into the worksheet. Excel also allows you to move a graph to a separate sheet in the workbook. Click on the chart to make the Chart Design tab visible. Then choose Chart Design | Move Chart (it’s on the extreme right side of the Chart Design tab) to open the Move Chart dialog box. Click the New Sheet radio button to add a sheet and move the chart there. Figure 3-9 shows how the chart looks in its own chart sheet. As you can see in Figure 3-9, I relocated the legend from Figure 3-8.
FIGURE 3-9: The Stacked Column chart, in its own chart sheet.
This is a nice way of showing percentage changes over the course of time. If you just want to focus on percentages in one year, the next type of graph is more effective.
Slicing the Pie
On to the next chart type. To show the percentages that make up one total, a pie chart gets the job done effectively.
Suppose you want to focus on US commercial space revenues for 1994 — the last column of data in Table 3-1. You catch people’s attention when you present the data in the form of a pie chart, like the one in Figure 3-10.
FIGURE 3-10: A pie chart of the last column of data in Table 3-1.
Here’s how to create this chart:
1 Enter your data into a worksheet.It’s pretty easy. I’ve already done this.
2 Select the data that go into the chart.I want the names in column A and the data in column F. The trick is to select column A (cells A2 through A7) in the usual way and then press and
